I'm potentially working with a company that currently hosts their own Exchange server for about 50 users in a few different and widespread offices. We've been discussing the possibility of migrating to a cloud/hosted solution for few reasons, including cost and availability. Email is the second highest prioroity for them, right after phones (and 90% of the business is communication based).

Currently they have a large server in an AC controlled room (built specifically to house this machine, and pay a few thousand a month to get a solid high speed connection. Exchange is the only service hosted on this machine-no AD use beyond that needed for Exchange logins.

The argument for going to a hosted service is all the usual ones: let someone who focuses on that handle it, who has better infrastructure, better training and better resources. The only concern is lack of transparency when there is an issue, but that seems like a relatively easy thing to mitigate (especially given the other cost reductions, including the most expensive internet line). So the questions become what do we go to, and how can we make this migration relatively painless?

Initially the two big cloud answers are going to Google Apps and Microsoft 365. While Google Apps has been around longer, Microsoft has a product that is basically a 1:1 transition, which should theoretically make migration, setup and training simpler to work with: same tools, just a different server. Am I wrong in thinking this would be a better match? And I'm still debating which plans but either of the Medium Business options, or the E1 level might be fine (and maybe the full E3 if they want the full archive features, plus it keeps them up-to-date on Office-this is where the mix and match plans for Enterprise become handy- the interns can get the basic, while the managers can get the bette plans). Has anyone handled a migration from Exchange (recent version, 2008/2010 I think-I haven't yet checked the server out fully), and if so, is it in fact a fairly straightforward transition?

Also, while the filesharing needs aren't huge they do want to be able to share documents easily. The platform is about 50/50 Mac/Windows and they aren't working on large files most of the time. If the Sharepoint features don't fit particularly well, I was considering something like OwnCloud running on distinct onsite servers (and syncing only with eachother, across S2S VPN), giving everyone a fairly local (even if they are out of the office) access point. And if they are in one of the other offices then they have a full speed connection to their data, getting synced back to their home location automatically. Plus it's an instant offsite backup (we'd have a historical backup made to our office to handle deletions/corruption). I know OwnCloud is a bit raw still, but I think we have the security aspects mitigated, so its just stability and syncing that are the issues. Or is there another similar type product (we can buy what we need, just that OwnCloud seems to be pretty close right out of the box). The dropbox-type replication solution seems like a nice feature, but I've done something similar just doing wone way syncs to read-only folders that was plenty usable. Centralized storage isn't really an option (and I'm not sure what other exist, hence my questions). I would anticipate needing 4TB of storage or so, not huge amounts but enough that a service isn't likely to cut it cost and security wise.

The by far easiest solution for you would be to just forklift move your existing Exchange setup to a VPS provider. They'll handle the infrastructure and connectivity, and you'll retain your own management.

If you want to save more money, go with Office 365. The migration is relatively straightforward, and you can run a mixed environment while you're transitioning. At $4/user/month, for 50 users, you'll save a lot of money over your current setup.

I wouldn't bother with Google Apps in your environment - getting the users to convert to Google's significantly different way of doing things is typically a headache, and quite a bit of stuff will be lost in translation, so to speak.

I think we'd all prefer someone else handling everything other than account creation and password changes (for the most part) so I think the 365 direction is the way to go. The different pricing tiers is nice- being able to mix and match in the enterprise level is a differentiator MS should promote a bit more. My only worry is about data backups since I won't have any real way to monitor that myself, but then again, it shouldn't really matter much-the people who have the highest need to retireve that one email they deleted a month ago will be the ones on the top tier plan anyway. And not having to retrain users will be huge. I have used Google Apps for years and still find usability issues and inexplicable bugs that drive me nuts. At least with MS I still get the advantage of producing documents that are industry standard and easily portable, plus everything else will work just as expected (since its the way things have been going so far).

I think we'd all prefer someone else handling everything other than account creation and password changes (for the most part) so I think the 365 direction is the way to go. The different pricing tiers is nice- being able to mix and match in the enterprise level is a differentiator MS should promote a bit more. My only worry is about data backups since I won't have any real way to monitor that myself, but then again, it shouldn't really matter much-the people who have the highest need to retireve that one email they deleted a month ago will be the ones on the top tier plan anyway. And not having to retrain users will be huge. I have used Google Apps for years and still find usability issues and inexplicable bugs that drive me nuts. At least with MS I still get the advantage of producing documents that are industry standard and easily portable, plus everything else will work just as expected (since its the way things have been going so far).

To add onto the O365 mentions already here, you mentioned file sharing. Some plans come with SharePoint online which makes it extremely easy to share files with other users on the system. You can then use SkyDrive Pro to access your SharePoint Online libraries via File Explorer on the Windows machines while keeping a local copy intact.

Yeah- I keep digging through and it looks like this just makes the most sense. I've got a call scheduled with a local MS Partner to see about them handling the heavy lifting for the migration and leaving me with the admin duties afterwards.

You might also look Zimbra. We migrated to it at my former company. We ran it on a VM linux server but you can get it hosted as well.Pretty darn good uptimes, lots of Outlook/Exchange features for a very reasonable price.

Pretty darn good uptimes, lots of Outlook/Exchange features for a very reasonable price.

Zimbra has an issue. The advertised support pricing that's pretty much just as high as using Exchange will run you. For "lots of Outlook/Exchange features" you really need a compelling cost savings to switch. It just isn't there with Zimbra.

If the place is PC and Mac, Skydrive Pro will be useless to the Mac folks.

If you really don't *need/want* SharePoint, you might want to look at just hosting Exchange and handling the mobile file sync issue with a dedicated provider like Box, Dropbox, or by buying a solution like Syncplity, Citrix ShareFile, etc.

Depending on the business and culture, the file sync functionality may be more valuable than the other stuff that O365 brings to the table. SharePoint is a tough product to get right, and SkyDrive is really just a sync tool consuming SharePoint.

$35/mbx/year (OpEx), $63/mbx for a "perpetual license" (CapEx) + 1 year of support requirement (OpEx, not included in the $63).

Exchange standard CALs retail for practically the same price (CapEx) (with no support requirement). It looks like around $50 at CDW for a no-discount license (without services). This is not an apples to oranges comparison.

Sure there is no server license, but on any sizeable install (i.e. one large enough that it makes sense to host your own email), the server license is a tiny fraction.

edit: hard to find a no discount price for Exchange CALs. If anyone can locate an actual no-discount price, let me know.

Outlook is bundled with Office, which almost everyone purchases anyway. Even if you don't purchase Outlook/Office, what client are you going to use with Zimbra? IMAP? You can do IMAP with Exchange as well, not that you'd want to. Webmail? OWA is pretty good and getting better with each newer version.

Outlook is bundled with Office, which almost everyone purchases anyway

Yes, this is true for most offices these days. But, if you are a wacko Open Source or Mac shop, that's an extra cost.

Quote:

Generally speaking, if you're buying MS Office, just use Exchange.

I disagree. As much as I like Exchange and Outlook, and I do like Exchange and Outlook, I think anapples to apples complete solution cost analysis will show that Zimbra is cheaper anda good value without sacrificing features.

We are just starting such an analysis today. I don't know if this is to beat a better discount out of Microsoft, but I do know that the upgrade to Exchange 2010 is expensive enough to have our VPs interested in Zimbra. We had RedHat in for a presentation last week and we took a good 20 minutes of the time talking about how they use Zimbra and how it works for them.

We are just starting such an analysis today. I don't know if this is to beat a better discount out of Microsoft, but I do know that the upgrade to Exchange 2010 is expensive enough to have our VPs interested in Zimbra. We had RedHat in for a presentation last week and we took a good 20 minutes of the time talking about how they use Zimbra and how it works for them.

Why are you looking at a 2010 migration when 2013 has been out for 7 months? Is there a particular 3rd party product holding you back due to supportability?

Hey, we are healthcare, we can use anything that it too new. Upgrading to a product that is still under support by the vendor is a novel concept in this industry. This project has been on the books for the last 18 months, its was supposed to start this FY.

Slide 10 is complete BS for most shops, assigning 100% of the user CAL price to Exchange only makes sense if you are a 0% MS shop which is about as rare as hens teeth. If you remove the server user CALs from the comparison they are within 15% of each other, at that point does it make sense to go with a second tier platform with a significantly smaller support base?

Slide 10 is complete BS for most shops, assigning 100% of the user CAL price to Exchange only makes sense if you are a 0% MS shop which is about as rare as hens teeth. If you remove the server user CALs from the comparison they are within 15% of each other, at that point does it make sense to go with a second tier platform with a significantly smaller support base?

You also don't need to buy SA if you don't want to. (We sure don't for most products). That's where almost 1/4 of their cost is coming from. Premier support for *all* our MS products is a tiny, tiny fraction of what SA on just one of the products would be. SA isn't worth so much when you can't upgrade until such a time that keeping the SA current (OpEx) costs more than buying new next time (CapEx). It's also a comparison to a 6 year old version of exchange.

Basically, it's a nice big cooked number on the Exchange side that no sane org would have for a cost. I can't fault them too much, *all* vendors do this (MS has some interesting math to inflate the cost of locally hosted email systems to promote o365), but the people here should know better

SA isn't worth so much when you can't upgrade until such a time that keeping the SA current (OpEx) costs more than buying new next time (CapEx). It's also a comparison to a 6 year old version of exchange.

Obviously I don't know what your paying exactly... but in general maintaining SA for the last few releases of Exchange would have resulted in SA being cheaper overall. As far as I know as long as you have SA active when a new version RTMs and hits the price list you then gain the rights to upgrade to it as part of your current SA even if you were to cancel SA a year from then.

SA isn't worth so much when you can't upgrade until such a time that keeping the SA current (OpEx) costs more than buying new next time (CapEx). It's also a comparison to a 6 year old version of exchange.

Obviously I don't know what your paying exactly... but in general maintaining SA for the last few releases of Exchange would have resulted in SA being cheaper overall. As far as I know as long as you have SA active when a new version RTMs and hits the price list you then gain the rights to upgrade to it as part of your current SA even if you were to cancel SA a year from then.

Only if you pretend that CapEx and OpEx are created equal. As IT folk, we usually think $1 is $1, but it's never that simple to the accountants. Other than the difference in capital vs operating, there is also the cost of money factor to consider. It's far more complex, and in an area with such thin margins, I tend to trust the accountants' assessments over my own rudimentary understanding, just as I would expect them to trust me in my own field of expertise.

You have to realize that in healthcare, a 10 year (or more) version cycle on infrastructure is really common. The way non-insurance healthcare companies survive is by managing their costs properly, because they are huge.

SA isn't worth so much when you can't upgrade until such a time that keeping the SA current (OpEx) costs more than buying new next time (CapEx). It's also a comparison to a 6 year old version of exchange.

Obviously I don't know what your paying exactly... but in general maintaining SA for the last few releases of Exchange would have resulted in SA being cheaper overall. As far as I know as long as you have SA active when a new version RTMs and hits the price list you then gain the rights to upgrade to it as part of your current SA even if you were to cancel SA a year from then.

Only if you pretend that CapEx and OpEx are created equal. As IT folk, we usually think $1 is $1, but it's never that simple to the accountants. Other than the difference in capital vs operating, there is also the cost of money factor to consider. It's far more complex, and in an area with such thin margins, I tend to trust the accountants' assessments over my own rudimentary understanding, just as I would expect them to trust me in my own field of expertise.

You have to realize that in healthcare, a 10 year (or more) version cycle on infrastructure is really common. The way non-insurance healthcare companies survive is by managing their costs properly, because they are huge.

You are quickly gaining credibility in this thread!

One feature that was broken in Zimbra was delegated authority. Zimbra has a feature where you can delegate your mailbox to say, your admin, who can read and respond to your emails for you. It works 90 - 95% of the time but there was a lot of goofiness going on. Not good when the president's admin gets mad and blames you. I had at least 4 tickets open with Zimbra for this. Another broken feature was modifying meeting series. If you schedule a meeting series, then open and alter one instance, there is a non-trivial chance it will alter ALL meetings in the series. Another open ticket. Other than that, meetings worked pretty well.

If the place is PC and Mac, Skydrive Pro will be useless to the Mac folks.

If you really don't *need/want* SharePoint, you might want to look at just hosting Exchange and handling the mobile file sync issue with a dedicated provider like Box, Dropbox, or by buying a solution like Syncplity, Citrix ShareFile, etc.

Depending on the business and culture, the file sync functionality may be more valuable than the other stuff that O365 brings to the table. SharePoint is a tough product to get right, and SkyDrive is really just a sync tool consuming SharePoint.

On the Mac the skydrive web browser client works ok. Hopefully MS is releasing a native client for OS X and iOS soon

SA isn't worth so much when you can't upgrade until such a time that keeping the SA current (OpEx) costs more than buying new next time (CapEx). It's also a comparison to a 6 year old version of exchange.

Obviously I don't know what your paying exactly... but in general maintaining SA for the last few releases of Exchange would have resulted in SA being cheaper overall. As far as I know as long as you have SA active when a new version RTMs and hits the price list you then gain the rights to upgrade to it as part of your current SA even if you were to cancel SA a year from then.

Only if you pretend that CapEx and OpEx are created equal.

I fully understand CapEx and OpEx are entirely different animals.

If you are a company not bound by horrendously restrictive authoritarian practices and regulations, then SA often makes sense as long as your man hours and any potential incurred HW costs don't blow you out of the water to do the migration. If you are stuck in one of those shops, then I agree it may skew things.

Also, SA is not simply about just getting new versions of software. There is a huge list of other benefits that comes with an active SA agreement many people never realize they have. That is most likely the fault of MS or the reseller for not explaining what the customer gets with SA very well. The additional benefits may even in a company forced to not upgrade very often still outweigh the costs of the SA agreement itself. It's up to every company to evaluate what is right or wrong for them.

SA isn't worth so much when you can't upgrade until such a time that keeping the SA current (OpEx) costs more than buying new next time (CapEx). It's also a comparison to a 6 year old version of exchange.

Obviously I don't know what your paying exactly... but in general maintaining SA for the last few releases of Exchange would have resulted in SA being cheaper overall. As far as I know as long as you have SA active when a new version RTMs and hits the price list you then gain the rights to upgrade to it as part of your current SA even if you were to cancel SA a year from then.

Only if you pretend that CapEx and OpEx are created equal.

I fully understand CapEx and OpEx are entirely different animals.

If you are a company not bound by horrendously restrictive authoritarian practices and regulations, then SA often makes sense as long as your man hours and any potential incurred HW costs don't blow you out of the water to do the migration. If you are stuck in one of those shops, then I agree it may skew things.

Also, SA is not simply about just getting new versions of software. There is a huge list of other benefits that comes with an active SA agreement many people never realize they have. That is most likely the fault of MS or the reseller for not explaining what the customer gets with SA very well. The additional benefits may even in a company forced to not upgrade very often still outweigh the costs of the SA agreement itself. It's up to every company to evaluate what is right or wrong for them.

For example, "Extended Hotfix Support" for non-security hotfixes for older versions. Why does EHS for non-SA customers must be enrolled within 90 days of the product entering Extended Support, BTW?